Breathtaking bigotry

Here is a pretty good example of the frustrating, disheartening stuff I was talking about yesterday. From STFU, Believers:

I’m not entirely sure what the context is, but if it’s something recent my guess would be that it has something to do with the National Day of Prayer. It’s an amazingly unconstitutional “holiday,” although that’s a real mess in the courts right now. But even setting aside that strangeness, it was weird that President Obama tried to make it inclusive — not just of members of a variety of faiths, but of nonbelievers as well.

It is thus fitting that, from the earliest years of our country’s history, Congress and Presidents have set aside days to recognize the role prayer has played in so many definitive moments in our history. On this National Day of Prayer, let us follow the example of President Lincoln and Dr. King. Let us be thankful for the liberty that allows people of all faiths to worship or not worship according to the dictates of their conscience, and let us be thankful for the many other freedoms and blessings that we often take for granted.

Mm, yeah, it’s a day of prayer, those of us who don’t worship aren’t exactly involved. And as this bigoted idiot on Facebook so astutely points out, any effort to make the day seem “interfaith” is pretty transparent. When you capitalize “God” and name-drop a couple famous American Christians in the proclamation, we all get the hint.

I couldn’t find the phrase “regardless of which God you pray to” directly attributed to Obama anywhere, but it’s not entirely clear this poster thought they were using a direct quote. At any rate, the general lip-service-to-religious-inclusivity message is one that we’ve heard from Obama before. And this sort of response is not uncommon. I just thought it was worth pointing out that this is the “persecution” that Christians complain about — the mere acknowledgement that other religions exist, that some people believe in a god or gods that are not exactly the same as the Christian god (which is not to say that that’s a singular and well-defined concept). That’s the point we’re at in American society; that’s how much of a default Christianity is presumed to be.

2 Comments

Doug

I see this all the time from my family. They seem to have the belief that the only reason we aren’t all forced to spend every minute of the day praising jesus like they want is because someone claimed offense and now god is being persecuted. So they think that if they claim offense and their beliefs aren’t immediately catered to that makes everybody else a hypocrite and makes them a martyr for “the cause.”

It’s mind-bogglingly stupid and doesn’t make any sense at all, but it’s the way they think. Persecution complex and all….

This also happens every time believers suggest that I ask God to show himself to me. They seem to think that I believe that God is merely hiding himself, when I actually I believe that he does not exist.

This idea, or the idea that someone might believe in an entirely different god, just doesn’t occur to some believers, they’re that wrapped up in their belief system.